St John’s Elects Two New Research Fellows in the Sciences and Mathematics
St John’s Research Fellowships in the Sciences and Mathematics are open to researchers who hold in their own right fixed-term funding from a University of Oxford department without a college attachment. The Fellowships are intended to support the career development of exceptional researchers and to bring distinguished scientists and mathematicians from the University into the College.
Dr Seán Froudist-Walsh is head of the Cognition, Anatomy and Neural Networks (CANN) research group at the University of Oxford and Trinity College Dublin. He is interested in how different brain anatomies lead to different types of intelligence and different ways of perceiving the world. Seán’s research aims to help build better artificial intelligence using dynamical-systems models that incorporate real brain anatomy and operate under constraints faced by biological brains. His research also aims to make translational neuroscience more effective and ethical. By predicting which biological mechanisms are shared across species, his models could help researchers select the most appropriate species for particular experiments, improving the likelihood that findings translate to the human brain while reducing unnecessary animal experimentation.
" I am delighted and very grateful for the opportunity to join St John’s as a Research Fellow. I particularly look forward to conversations with original thinkers and experts across disciplines that will challenge my ideas and help me grow as a scientist, and I am equally excited to contribute to the College’s research community, outreach work, and wider impact. " Dr Seán Froudist-Walsh
Seán has a PhD in neuroscience and neuroimaging from King’s College London, is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and holds a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship.
Dr Verena Körber leads the Somatic Evolution Research Group at the MRC Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine. Her research focuses on somatic stem cells and tissue homeostasis. Collaborating with clinicians and experimentalists, Verena seeks to understand how tissues grow, adapt, and deteriorate in health and disease by combining next-generation sequencing with mathematical modelling. Using principles from evolutionary theory, she develops mathematical models of mutation and selection, which allow us to trace the ancestry of individual cells from naturally occurring mutations. This research will improve our understanding of healthy ageing, reveal the earliest stages of cancer development, and support earlier detection and more effective treatments.
" The St John’s fellowship is a wonderful opportunity for me to discuss science with academics across a wide range of disciplines. I look forward to contributing to the College’s intellectual community and engaging with students and Fellows. " Dr Verena Körber
Verena completed a PhD on brain cancer evolution at the German Cancer Research Centre in Heidelberg, won the Kind Philipp Prize for Pediatric Oncology research, and holds a Cancer Research UK Career Development Fellowship.
We look forward to both Sean and Verena’s contributions to the research life of the College.